Rep. Tlaib, who was elected in November to represent the 13th District in Michigan, was sworn into the 116th Congress on Thursday. The congresswoman is the first Palestinian American women elected to Congress, and during her swearing in Rep. Tlaib wore a thobe.

Rep. Tlaib shared that she would be wearing a thobe on Instagram last month.

“Sneak peek: This is what I am wearing when I am sworn into Congress. #PalestinianThobe #ForMyYama,” she wrote on December 14.

However, the Instagram post was met with backlash, sparking Palestinian American novelist Susan Muaddi Darraj to float the idea of #TweetYourThobe on Twitter, as a way to show support for Tlaib.

“What if a lot of us Palestinian American women wore our dresses that day and tweeted pictures of ourselves to support her, because she was getting all this backlash?” Darraj told INSIDER. “And a lot of people liked it, but then I started getting an incredible amount of hate mail. It was awful.”

The converation around the thobes was moved to a private Facebook group; Darraj initially invited 300 people to join, and by January 3, she said there were 8,000 members.

On Thursday the movement was launched, and images of women in their thobes flooded social media — along with messages about the importance of representation in Congress.

As the son of a Palestinian mother, its a milestone for Palestinian-Americans to see their culture and heritage reflected in their elected officials. Young girls like my daughter and niece now have officials they can see & aspire to be like one day! @RashidaTlaib#tweetyourthobepic.twitter.com/zJ9RPuAXPi

“It’s really powerful,” Darraj said of seeing Tlaib in Congress. “I think I’m more moved that she wore the dress her mother made for her, because these dresses — we all have them. These dresses are dresses that are made by hand, and they are very particular to the village where you grew up. You can look at a woman’s dress and you can tell which village or which part of Palestine she’s from.”

Thobes, Darraj explained are worn to formal events, so it would make sense for the dress to be worn for the swearing in ceremony.

“I want to do something that sort of normalizes this moment that makes everybody aware that this is what we do in our culture,” Darraj explained to INSIDER, saying that she was excited about people from all cultures connecting with the movement.

The movement is in line with the 116th Congress, which is most diverse in US history. Tlaib is one of the first two Musilm American women to serve in Conress, along with Rep. Ilhan Omar. Rep. The new Congress also saw the swearing in of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, Reps. Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids.